I was sexually abused twice: once at 4 and again when I was 17 by a personal trainer who was gay. I've always been sexually attracted to women, but being abused by men while young (especially a gay man) fostered a very toxic gender-identity confusion. Now, six years into my recovery, I find myself at a crossroads again. I completely self-identify as a heterosexual male, but I sometimes look at gay pornography. It's a compulsion. I don't want to look at it (the gay porn), nor do I enjoy it. But (as anyone who understands sexuality knows) there are many layers of meaning and emotion that I'm struggling with. I'm specifically only aroused by extremely muscular men in the gay porn. Please understand that sexual arousal does NOT mean enjoyment or orientation. I tend to look at the gay porn when I'm feeling especially bad about myself, feeling sexually unattractive, or out of control, etc. I'm obviously projecting upon these model/Adonis-like men, wishing that I had their bodies. I look at (and enjoy) straight porn, but the men in the straight porn never have the physiques of the gay performers. So here's my dilemma = I feel guilt when I find myself looking at the gay porn (before, during, and after). I consciously avoid ejaculating while looking at the gay porn because it's traumatizing/victimizing, reinforces further confusion, and I just don't plain enjoy it. I'm at a loss...I so badly want a girlfriend, but don't know how to explain myself or have my sexual needs met without viewing 'gay porn.'

*A little about me: Art history student, competitive bodybuilder, personal trainer, (hopefully you can see that beauty and body image are obsessions of mine).

I don't know, maybe I am wrong but, my experiences started at three and I sort of see it as having distorted sexual arousal patterns during my abuse...having been aroused during the victimization...I sort of created fantasies based on the experience. Arousal after that kinda got tangled up...knowing that...helped me.

It might be oversimplifying it a bit but...you do mention revictimizing...and yea, it was confusing, to be sure. Sexuality is a huge part of who we are.

My bet would be that, as you talk about it and if you can find an expression for the things attached to it...you know, the emotions...that it will be less of an issue.

From one survivor to another, welcome to MS. So sorry that you have to find yourself here, but I sure am glad for you that you did find this invaluable ressource. You will find much understanding from like minded men here, guys who speak the same language that you do for having had common past experiences and similar recovery journeys. You are no longer alone.

Originally Posted By: faller2

Please understand that sexual arousal does NOT mean enjoyment or orientation.

You will not get any arguments from anyone here concerning your above statement.

In the Sexual Identity Issues Forum you will read post after post on this very topic - it just keeps coming back and it does so because it is a very common problem for a great many guys.

Sans LogosMemberMaleSurvivor
Registered: 05/31/03
Posts: 5791
Loc: in my own world in pittsburgh,...

faller2, my remembered abuse began at the time of my adolescence. i can't imagine how being abused at such an early age might affect one, though my little sis was also abused beginning at at age 5, and i've watched her particular struggle and confusion as she's grown.

all i know is that self-loathing seems to be a common thread running through the lives of many survivors, no matter what age the abuse occurred, even prior to issues around sexual identification.

for me that has been the toilet tissue that has stuck to my heel through all these many years of recovery and healing. i just can't seem to get the idea out of my head that ' i am my body'. i am not. this body is merely a vehicle, but someone made it an object, before i was powerful enough to resist and to object.

as a sensual being responding strongly to kinesthetic data i learned from an early age to define and construct myself in relation to the impact of those experiences and to identify with the stimulii. i became trapped by them.

later, in grad studies i studied the alexander technique which caused me to come across the topic proprioception, which, as an instrumental teacher, i find it really helpful in expressing an understanding of what happens as the body exists in the periphery of the time/space continuum.

nerves and muscles react to stimulii and in effect become a 'feedback' mechanism, that kicks into play whenever the factors affecting the physical components are brought into play.

so much of our reactions become automatic responses to a stimulus that acted upon us at a previous time. much of our reactions live in muscle and nerve memory.

my personal understanding is that the particular propensity for a certain orientation is built into one's personal dna imprint, and it cannot be changed---it is gifted. however, confusion can arise when these experiences happen to us and teach our muscles and nerves to respond in a manner contrary to the imprint, and when shame and fear enter the mixture, arising from the dissonance between who we are, and who we think we are supposed to be, then we find our selves in a cul de sac of looping behaviors that seem to ricochet between a set of motivators [learned muscle and nerve] and and undesirable effects [acting out behaviors] and fear and cultural shame attached to those behaviors.

for me, part of the path to release from such behaviors was recognizing that i had misplaced the focus on the undesirable result, rather than on the underlying issue, which in my case was shame.

i was ashamed of my body, and i hated it because i thought it had betrayed me. my abuse taught me at a very early age that the thing that made me 'special' and gave me any value whatsoever, was my flesh. and so i developed a life around the belief that if i made myself as fetching as possible, then everyone would want a piece of me.

i had bought so deeply into the notion of beauty = worth that i invested all my hopes into becoming 'beautiful'.

it is easy to look at 'the beautiful'. they are shoved in our faces everywhere we go, in all media. and the media plays on the notion that we are all so deeply disenfranchised from deepest and truest selves, that if they hold up a sign screaming 'be beautiful, like so and so....use this product....go to this gym.....take these courses.....eat this food....blah blah blah', then maybe we will invest in the sad reality they hold out for us as hope for a brighter tomorrow, a better 'me'. more palatable, more valuable, more worthy, more loved.

ok, so i went the long again......LOL, the point i am trying to make is that at some point along in my life, my abuse began to defined me in my ignorance, before i was even aware that it was happening. and by the time the mind caught on, schemas had already become enshrined within, which began to direct my life choices in such a manner as to live to sate this need for being loved and accepted.

i was caught in the quagmire of my own unrecognized self-belief. but through recovery and healing, i was able to eventually put all this in perspective and begin to live a life that i decide to live, rather than just be the servant of a belief system that seemed to automatically live out its own mechanism using me, ron as its host.

well, thanks for helping think about my life, my feelings and my thoughts as they relate to what i read in your post.

glad you are here, and i hope you get the understanding that you seek,

ron, what a beautiful, beautiful post here. you have encapsulated so many impressions that I have thought of myself but unable to see it through as you have. It's so painful for me to continue to forge through the murky feelings, so I truly am in awe of what you wrote here.

Thanks from me as well. I don't have an issue with gay porn, but I have plenty of others that this fits with as well. I won't deny having issues with the identity questioning, but I think I know where I stand, none the less this stuff screws with ones sense of self in a big way.

If you don't enjoy doing it, or how it makes you feel, I'm voting for a change of direction. Just throwing this out, but how about amazon type women?

I am almost positive if you looked hard enough you could probably find a few model/adonis type men performing straight porn, but alas, I'm not really here to debate this issue.

Maybe, in the future, when you get into a relationship this will morph into a non issue...perhaps? crossing that bridge...

But just for discussion sake...Are there other/deeper links? just a guess, but I'm thinking...

For starters...I've heard some bodybuilders compare lifting/building to the next best thing to sex. (some would probably argue better). So there is that...in the mix.

Compounded perhaps with, an unconcious link, that within this same sex scene...there might be a power dynamic between dominate and submissive participants. (not noticed/unseen, at the start... playing out while viewed).

Which links back, into a possible visual revision of the past, as a way of trying to regain or control our past through thinking it through, as if we could make any sense of it all(Which males are taught to do) In order to block our true feelings of our past. Getting in touch with these feelings/emotions is at the heart of my recovery.

Hoping I have helped or somehow clarified (if even a part)of this (no doubt) confusing topic.

One thing (for sure) your way ahead of me, with the fact that you know your true orientation...!!!

I am at peace though, not knowing what type of bird I am.

Forever Free (Wasp)

island

_________________________
Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine ~ M.F. Fernandez

Very gratefull for this thread. Faller2, Ron and Island, if I weave what the 3 of you have written, it is enlightening for me and my experience. I've spent lots of years trying to figure out the interplay between my fascination with body builder type guys and my deep conviction of, and commitment to a heterosexual orientation and life relationship. As nearly as I can tell my abuse began at about age three and was repeated by both males and females at various ages until middle teen years. Other family secrets and my father's death in my early adolescen complicated the whole thing so that there has had to be a lot of unraveling. It is only the fascination with carefully muscled men until I get to know them as real people that isn't quite resolved. Mostly I know the problem when I'm not in a good place in terms of self image. Primarily, gratitude for my physical self, and being aware that I could find myself at the end having not appreciated what was good about myself by wishing that I were different, helps me undo the pain of my own inability to accept and appreciate the marvelous body with which I was created. It is my own thinking that needs to be worked on. Even when I was fit enough that guys with whom I worked out and who were much younger than I, complimented my training results, I was still not able to see what others recognized. I believe this has its origin in the abuse that left me devaluing my being and seeing only a flawed creation. Thanks for being brave enough to write your experiences they are helpful signposts on this journey.

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